A prolific author, Rauch is senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and a contributing editor at National Journal and The Atlantic. Despite having achieved substantial success by middle age, his life satisfaction slumped unaccountably in his 40s. Paradoxically, at around 50, when he did face real setbacks, he says that he started to become more satisfied with his life.

What was going on?

Rauch dug into the research and found that two economists — one from Dartmouth and one from the University of Warwick — had been investigating this phenomenon since 2004. Psychologists have long known that certain life circumstances tend to impact life satisfaction: Being unemployed, for example, tends to lower life satisfaction, while being married tends to raise it. But it turns out that age has a surprisingly powerful, independent effect.

Source: The Happiness Curve. Used with permission.

Using data from public opinion surveys of more than a half-million people in the United States and Europe, and controlling for variables like employment, marital status, and other social and economic conditions, David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald found that for men and women, on both sides of the Atlantic, life satisfaction reaches its lowest point in mid-life. Evaluative happiness— the kind we mean when we talk about leading a happy life — can be graphed across the life span as a U-shaped curve. In the almost 15 years since Blanchflower and Oswald’s first discovery of the happiness U-curve, the evidence has become even more compelling.

Affective happiness — the kind of happiness we mean when we talk about our mood — is related to depression. But people can experience a mid-life dip in life satisfaction without a depressed mood. “In my own forties, my life satisfaction was low, and much lower than I thought it should be, but my mood was usually not a problem,” Rauch writes. “I did not have a mood disorder. I had a contentment disorder.”

When people are not content with life, Rauch explains, they can start to feel unhappy about being unhappy. Then, being unhappy about being unhappy makes them feel even worse, and the feedback loop creates a downward spiral, leading to a deepening hole of dissatisfaction. For people whose circumstances can't explain their unhappiness, the downward spiral can be especially extreme. “Sometimes the people who are, relatively speaking, least affected by objective circumstances will be most trapped in feedback loops,” he says. But understanding that a mid-life decrease in happiness is a normal part of life might help prevent that downward spiral. “Discovering that I was experiencing something common and normal — in fact, chimps and orangutans experience something like it — gave me relief, answers, and tools for coping,” Rauch told me. “I wanted other people to have the same knowledge.”

So he set about writing The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, in which he debunks longstanding myths about middle age and happiness. Some of the findings Rauch shares are surprising — even to him. He told me about two in particular that stood out:

"First, the midlife malaise can be and often is about, literally, nothing. It can be a self-propelled negative emotional cycle that takes on a life of its own. In fact, successful and stable people are especially vulnerable to this weird and perverse midlife cycle. Second, after midlife, the aging process — other things being equal — makes us more happy, not less so, an effect that persists into old age and even helps protect us from the emotional toll of physical illness and decline. That's not to say everyone who is old is happy, but the stereotype of aging as an emotional horror show is the opposite of the truth."

In the book, Rauch relates human stories that provide insight and provides practical steps to help those in the trough of the happiness curve. For example, he describes the negative effect of social comparison and shares the impact it had on his own happiness:

"I was not comparing my 40-year-old self to my 20-year-old self, as the 20-year-old version of me had assumed I would. I was comparing myself to other 40-somethings in my peer group, many of whom also had sustained relationships (often longer), accumulated wealth (often more), and achieved professional status (often higher)."

Quoting British economist Richard Layard, Rauch advises, “One secret of happiness is to ignore comparisons with people who are more successful than you are.”

Rauch also addresses the problem of unrealistic expectations. “Young people consistently overestimate their future life satisfaction. They make a whopping forecasting error, as non-random as it could be — as if you lived in Seattle and expected sunshine every day,” he explains. But at around age 50, we tend to become more realistic.

Source: Deborah Kolb/Shutterstock

Still, “the midlife slump isn't primarily a ‘me’ problem,” he says, “it’s a ‘we’ problem, exacerbated by the stereotype of midlife crisis and the shame and isolation it causes. The key is to become — individually and as a society — better at guiding and supporting each other in middle age. Each of us can start doing that for our own friends and loved ones right now.”

Note: The author's views are her own and should not be considered the official positions of FIRE or any other organization with which the author is associated.

Definitely an attitude problem. My sister reaches 40 in August, and she's dreading it, the topic is barred from conversation. I'm 36, and looking forward to it. Already promised myself that my friends and I will go to Paris to celebrate. My life is getting better with each passing year, and I've abandoned all the insecurities of my youth. Can't wait to see where my life takes me over the next 10 years.

I seem to never follow the curves of the population graphs. I was able to retire from my career at age 43 (17 years ago) and not go back to work (defined pension plan, healthcare and prodigious savings/investment plan). Turn 60 soon, and life seems to get more satisfying with each passing year. I did not follow the typical script of marriage and children - one mid 20's marriage lasting two years, and my second marriage 20 years later (after retirement and still married).

My unhappiest years were in my teens and 20's, growing less in my 30's and it has been an upward satisfaction trajectory ever since. The insecurities that bothered my decades ago have long vanished. Then, once I became sexually invisible due to age a couple decades ago, life became even better!

Amazing how everything now is all in the mind. Just get the right attitude, believe the right things, and hey presto, no more pain. What a shame it's all delusional. You talk about people having unrealistic expectations. Then you say this: "The key is to become—individually and as a society—better at guiding and supporting each other in middle age. Each of us can start doing that for our own friends and loved ones right now.” How unrealistic is that? You assume the key problem can be overcome with no more than a simple exhortation. Why don't we all just start being normal and everything will be fine. Doesn't work like that, even if society were the only problem of aging, which it isn't. Bodies and minds deteriorate, especially if you have been under stress all your life. Medications and old ways of coping no longer work, and you start to question your whole life. Then it dawns on you, too late, what a load of crap people talk.

I see all the data on the U curve of happiness and don’t doubt it. But my personal experience has been the complete opposite. My life satisfaction increase steadily through my 30s and 40s as my career took off and my self confidence boomed. But during my 50s it headed south, as I was slowly pushed aside by the younger generation on virtually every level (professional, physical, social, mental, etc). By late 50s, I characterize my life as miserable and expect it to only get worse.

People around me in their 40s are still heavily involved in child-rearing and career building. If their marriages aren’t great, they can sublimate those feelings in their jobs and kids.
After 50, the kids have or are starting to leave, but you still worry about them and have some responsibility for them. Maybe your job sucks and you’re feeling like it’s too late to start something new. The relationship issues you didn’t face earlier are now front and center. If you didn’t plan well enough for retirement, you’re looking at working for many more years and maybe a bleak future.
However — I see people in their 60s who seem like they weathered that storm and have pulled ahead again somehow. Maybe they got a divorce. Maybe their kids are now more solidly self-sufficient. Whatever.
I’m not too unhappy in my 50s but my 40s were way better and I’m hoping I settle into this a little bit better as years go on. And I actually have a very good marriage, nice kids and a pretty good salary. But it’s a long time until retirement for me, I’ve had to give up some of my favorite athletic activities because I have some knee problems that come with age and I have an aging parent to deal with.
50s ... meh

A lifetime of struggle, did it all and realized all my dreams come true. No regrets. High IQ and lacking EQ strategies. Probably fit under the Asperger Spectrum. Now in my seventies happiness and joy elude me. I don't trust people, past experiences or lessons. Am I alone. Lived through the worst of Vietnam, a college education lacking employment opportunities. Still married to the same women I detested as a child. My best friend. It is said we are only as old as we feel, pain and suffering was a lesson embedded in my soul by Shoah survivors. There is no god, but there is hope. What can I believe in anymore? Books or Counseling seems to be helpful at the moment but full of false theoretical excuses. We have an aging culture without direction. Thinkers seem to be useless. Looking for that sweet spot between Depression and Anxiety. I or ego omitted because I see it as a cultural problem. I need some plausible answers.